Crohn's disease

What is Crohn's disease?

Incidence of Crohn's disease

Symptoms of Crohn's disease

Triggers, causes and risk factors for Crohn's disease

Remedies and treatment of Crohn's disease

References

What is Crohn's disease?

Crohn's disease (inflammatory bowel disease) is an immune-deficient disease that can cause inflammation of any part of the gastrointestinal tract and a wide variety of other symptoms. Sufferers usually have symptoms such as abdominal pain or diarrhoea for years before it is diagnosed. They typically have periods of flare-ups and remissions.

Crohn's disease is caused by a combination of environmental, immunological and bacterial factors in genetically susceptible people. (1, 2, 3) It is a chronic inflammatory disorder in which the immune system attacks the gastrointestinal tract.

Half of all cases of Crohn's disease occur in a combination of the ileum and large intestine. 30% of cases occur in the ileum, and 20% of cases in the large intestine. Cases affecting the stomach, small intestine, oesophagus and any other parts of the digestive tract from the mouth to the anus are rare.

Incidence of Crohn's disease

In the USA approximately 1 in 600 people are diagnosed with Crohn's disease. In Western Europe, the rate is about 1 in 2,500. Males and females equally affected.

Smokers have twice the incidence of the disease.

Crohn's disease most commonly first presents in the teens and twenties, with another peak in the fifties to seventies. However, it can first occur at any age.

Having a sibling with the disease increases the risk by 30 times.

Symptoms of Crohn's disease

Symptoms In the gastrointestinal tract

• Abdominal pain and bloating.
• Diarrhoea.
• Flatulence.
• Blood in the stools (can be bright or dark red, and intermittent).
• Vomiting and nausea.
• Incontinence.

Symptoms outside of the gastrointestinal tract

• Weight loss because of poor food absorption and loss of appetite.
• Diseases resulting from poor nutrition, because of poor digestion of nutrients.
• Loss of appetite (sufferers feel better eating less or skipping meals).
• Skin diseases (inflammations and rashes).
• Mouth sores that do not heal.
• Rheumatoid arthritis.
• Inflammation of the eye.
• Tiredness and lack of energy.
• Lack of concentration.
• Neurological complications in up to 15% of patients, such as seizures, stroke, myopathy, peripheral neuropathy, Headaches and depression.
• Growth stunting in children.

Triggers, causes and risk factors for Crohn's disease

• Diet - eating a processed foods diet increases the risk of Crohn's disease. Sugar is a primary dietary cause. Foods to avoid include sugar, white flour and their products (bread, cake, biscuits, pastries), milk and other dairy products, polyunsaturated fats, potato chips, meat. The risk is lower with a vegetable-based diet, and consumption of vegetable rather than animal protein. (Fish protein is neutral).
• Plant foods, particularly those plant foods that are high in harmful phytochemicals, anti-nutrients and plant protectors (that protect plants from being eaten by animals) which inhibit the absorption of nutrients from the food that you eat. (5, 6, 7, 8)
• Lack of sunlight. Living indoors most of the time. Being exposed to artificial light, primariy in the blue spectrum, for large parts of the day.
• Contraceptive pill, and other pharmaceutical drugs.
• Contaminated drinking water, with added fluorides, numerous other pollutants.
• Infection by the protozoa Blastocystis (4) and possibly other pathogenica bacteria such as Mycobacterium.
• Aspartame sweetener (avoid all other food chemicals too).
• Location - living in an industrialised country.
• Smoking.
• Genetic.

Remedies and treatment of Crohn's disease

Conventional medicine has no cure for inflammatory bowel disease. However, people afflicted with Crohn's disease have found that lifestyle can have a major affect on its incidence. The most important thing you can do is get out in the sun, get lots of sunlight into your eyes and onto your skin all over your body. As you can see below, a peaceful, happy and healthy lifestyle can moderate the disease. Re-establish a strong and varied symbiosis of microorganisms in your digestive tract. Eat a variety of probiotic foods every day, and in particular, establish a water kefir plant and drink it every day. These foods should preferably be home-made. If you buy them, it is essential that they are alive and not pasteurised or factory-made foods.

• Eliminate processed foods, sugar, anything with sugar added, grains and anything made with flour, legumes. Return to a diet of real foods, being wholesome, traditional, home grown and home prepared foods. Make diet and lifestyle changes to reduce inflammation.
• Avoid all plant foods, to be even stricter. At the extreme, you may eat only animal based foods like meat, fish, eggs and poultry for a period of weeks, to prove to yourself that (some) plants are the problem. Gradually re-introduce the safest plants, usually low FODMAP foods, foods that are low in oxalates, foods that are low in phytates (phytic acid), and avoiding all soy and wheat products.
  
  A study found that an elemental diet is as or more effective than prednisone for acute Crohn's exacerbations. (5)
  
  A clinical trial showed that an elemental diet better than steroids in children suffering from Chron's. (6)
  
  Another study showed that an elemental diet better than polymeric diet (liquid diet) in treating Crohn's and keeping it in remission. An elemental diet has quick absorption and imposes less stress on the gut. (7)
  
  An exclusion diet keeps Crohn's patients in remission for up to 51 months in a clinical trial, which also showed that flare ups were less than 10% per annum ongoing. In contrast, a starch-based high fibre diet kept zero patients in remission. (8)
• Fecal transplant (FMT). The introduction of colonic bacteria from a healthy donor. After the transplant there is usually complete remission. If symptoms gradually recur after a period, doing another transplant gets things back to normal again. If you use a faecal transplant, please leave a comment (positive or negative) on the Grow Youthful web site.
  
  I find it appalling that some "expert and caring" doctors will recommend surgically removing a patient's colon and condemning them to a shortened and unpleasant life, without at least first trying a faecal transplant.
• Keep a food and lifestyle diary to identify foods or situations which may be triggers.
• Many people find a gluten-free diet helpful.
• Probiotics and live foods (water kefir, milk kefir, rejuvelac, whey, sauerkraut etc - the diet recommended in Grow Youthful).
• Sunlight, for hours every day. Eat in the sunlight. Walk and exercise in the sunlight. If you are living in a high latitude and suffering badly from your illness, you may have to move to a location closer to the equator (less than 20 degrees latitude). To test how successful sunlight is, try to have your next holiday or vacation in a place close to the equator. Spend your days outdoors. Get up and out of bed so you can watch the sunrise. Do not wear sunglasses. Do not use sunscreens. Of course, take care not to get sunburned or even slightly red.
• Methylene blue.
• Water - drink sufficient water.
• Eating smaller meals, avoiding large meals, gentle and short fasting.
• Regular exercise (pleasant but not painfully excessive or stressful).
• Sufficient sleep, 7 - 8 hours every day (not just weekends).
• Earthing or grounding.
• Avoid chronic stress.

References

1. Cho J.H., Brant S.R. Recent insights into the genetics of inflammatory bowel disease. May 2011. Gastroenterology 140 (6): 1704-12.

2. Dessein R., Chamaillard M., Danese S. Innate immunity in Crohn's disease: the reverse side of the medal. September 2008. Journal of Clinical Gastroenterology 42 (Suppl 3 Pt 1): S144-7.

3. Stefanelli T., Malesci A., Repici A., Vetrano S., Danese S. New insights into inflammatory bowel disease pathophysiology: paving the way for novel therapeutic targets. May 2008. Current drug targets 9 (5): 413-8.

4. Boorom K.F., Smith H., Nimri L. et al. Oh my aching gut: irritable bowel syndrome, Blastocystis, and asymptomatic infection. October 2008. Parasit Vectors 1 (1): 40.

5. C O'Morain, A W Segal, A J Levi. Elemental diet as primary treatment of acute Crohn's disease: a controlled trial. Br Med J (Clin Res Ed). 23 June 1984; 288:1859.

6. Sanderson IR, Udeen S, Davies PS, et al. Remission induced by an elemental diet in small bowel Crohn's disease. Archives of Disease in Childhood 1987;62:123-127.

7. MH Giaffer, G North, CD Holdsworth. Controlled trial of polymeric versus elemental diet in treatment of active Crohn's disease. The Lancet, Volume 335, Issue 8693, 1990, Pages 816-819, ISSN 0140-6736.

8. V Alun Jones, E Workman, AH Freeman, RJ Dickinson, AJ Wilson, JO Hunter. Crohn's disease: maintenance of remission by diet. The Lancet, Volume 326, Issue 8448, 1985, Pages 177-180, ISSN 0140-6736.